Vladeck - The Massive Stakes of Trump v. Illinois
By Steve Vladeck (University of Texas School of Law - Austin)
"On Friday afternoon, the Trump administration filed its latest (29th) emergency application in the Supreme Court, this one seeking a stay of a district court temporary restraining order (TRO) that is barring the administration from deploying federalized National Guard troops into Chicago and its environs. Below, I’m going to go into much more detail on how we got here; on what the district court and Seventh Circuit each ruled; and on how the Solicitor General’s application is asking for relief based upon not just an utterly limitless view of when the President can deploy federalized National Guard personnel, but a wildly different portrayal of the facts on the ground than what either lower court specifically concluded.
But the upshot is that, more than any of the first 28 applications from the Trump administration, Trump v. Illinois is a make-or-break moment for this Court. For the Supreme Court to issue a ruling that allows the President to send troops into our cities based upon contrived (or even government-provoked) facts, even if it does so in a way that avoids formally upholding such conduct as a matter of law, would be a terrible precedent for the Court to set—not just for what it would allow President Trump to do now, but for the even more grossly tyrannical conduct it would allow him and future presidents (assuming we have any) to undertake later. If factually and legally unpersuasive domestic deployments of troops aren’t going to be a red line for the Supreme Court, what the heck will be? "- SV
Unlike the notorious anti-labor injunction of In Re Debs, 158 U.S. 564 (1895) the government here seeks to accomplish the suppression of free speech by deploying federalized soldiers rather than thousands of deputized Pinkertons.
The hyperbolic tone of the government's application (above) can be seen here:
This case presents what has become a disturbing and recurring pattern: Federal officers are attempting to enforce federal immigration law in an urban area containing significant numbers of illegal aliens. The federal agents’ efforts are met with prolonged, coordinated, violent resistance that threatens their lives and safety and 2 systematically interferes with their ability to enforce federal law. That resistance succeeds to an alarming degree in its aim of obstructing federal agents from enforcing federal immigration law. Federal agents are forced to desperately scramble to protect themselves and federal property, allocating resources away from their law-enforcement mission to conduct protective operations instead. Receiving tepid support from local forces, they are often left to fend for themselves in the face of violent, hostile mobs. Confronted with intolerable risks of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law, the President lawfully determines that he is unable to enforce the laws of the United States with the regular forces and calls up the National Guard to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence. Local political leaders immediately sue in federal district court to prevent the President from deploying federal forces to protect federal agents and enable them to enforce federal immigration law. The district court then issues an opinion granting injunctive relief against the President’s action that downplays or denies the ongoing threat to the lives and safety of federal agents, substitutes the court’s own judgment for the President’s about the need for military augmentation, and gives little or no weight to the United States’ interest in enforcing federal immigration law. The district court then countermands the exercise of the President’s Commander-in-Chief authority and projects its own authority into the military chain of command. This pattern began in Los Angeles in early June, when violent mobs targeted federal personnel and federal buildings to thwart increased enforcement efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After local and state authorities failed to stem the violence, the President called up members of the California National Guard.
See decisions below:
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